Iraqi forces aim at each other

by COLIN FREEMAN IN BAGHDAD

THE first raid by all-Iraqi security forces on suspected terrorist hide-outs in Baghdad descended into chaos when members of the two teams involved turned their guns on each other, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

The captain in charge of a detachment from the newly-formed Iraqi civil defence corps threatened to shoot anti-terrorist squad officers who were using strong-arm tactics against a taxi driver trying to get through a road block.

The anti-terrorist officers then drew their guns in a Hollywood-style stand-off that only ended when the captain’s own men defused the situation by surrounding him and persuading him to lower his weapon.

Tensions rose again later in the raid when one of the defence corps was accused of looting one of the suspects’ houses.

None of this augurs well for one of the key measures introduced to reduce the number of attacks by home-grown insurgents, foreign fighters and car bombers on coalition forces carrying out law-and-order missions on the dangerous streets of Baghdad.

The elite anti-terrorist officers would until now have been accompanied on their mission by American troops. But a crucial part of the agreement to hand back control to Iraq’s new sovereign government last month was that policing missions should be an all-Iraqi affair.

With this in mind, the normally secretive commanders of the anti-terrorist squad agreed to a request from Scotland on Sunday to accompany them on a major raid against two suspected terrorist hide-outs in west Baghdad.

The omens for harmonious teamwork were bad from the start. First, the raid leader, Captain Anthar Daham, wounded the defence corps’ professional pride by refusing to tell them where the raids were going to be, fearing informers in their midst.

Then, after roadblocks had been set up around the suspects’ houses, order broke down when members of the anti-terrorist unit started to beat up the taxi driver, who had impertinently tried to get past.

The civil defence corps captain decided it was all too reminiscent of the bad old days. "What the hell are you doing - we’re not in Saddam’s time any more!" he screamed, cocking his loaded Kalashnikov and aiming it directly at his police colleagues, who promptly drew their own guns in response.

Only the quick reactions of the captain’s men, who surrounded him and wrestled the gun from his hands, prevented a Reservoir Dogs-style massacre.

Calm was restored, but not for long. Once inside the second suspect’s house, a row broke out over accusations that a defence corps soldier had stolen jewellery from a bedroom.

In the meantime, Daham’s closely-held leads failed to yield much in the way of arrests. One house turned out to be empty, while the other, said to belong to a Saudi militant, produced a man who claims to be a journalist and a member of new prime minister Iyad Allawi’s party. He was still taken in for questioning.

A motley collection of gypsies were also picked up for having no identification, along with the still-limping taxi driver.

Back at base, Daham blamed the infighting on the civil defence corps, which, like the rest of Iraq’s rookie security forces, he holds in low regard.

"Occasionally the police use a bit of force - we have seen the Americans do the same thing, you know," he said. "But what were the civil defence corps doing? You saw how that captain tried to shoot everybody. It is no good the Americans just giving them guns. I’ve been a policeman 17 years, and there’s a lot more to it than that."

But General Ra’ad Yas, the unit’s overall head, insisted the two arms of the security forces would continue to work together. "Just because one person from their unit is bad that doesn’t mean they all are," he said. "We have to work together if we are to rid the country of terrorists."

Formed five months ago from a cabal of experienced Saddam-era detectives, the occasional reversion by anti-terrorist officers to old-school methods does not always go down well with Iraq’s other fledgling security agencies.

But according to Colonel Diah Hassen, men with backgrounds in the former regime’s security systems are the key asset in the war against insurgency. "You have to remember, most of the Iraqis who are leading the insurgency now are ex-members of the security services themselves," he said.

"You need people who know how those guys work, and that is what we have here. I myself was in the Mukhabarat [secret police], army intelligence, police force, everything, and so were the other men. They have good information about what the terrorists are up to."

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=850372004